On 98% of Catholic women using contraception

[Hokomai]

What term would you use for non-procreational sex other than “recreational”? “Recreational sex” is a pretty common term in modern parlance.

Well, when I have had ‘non-procreational’ sex as you describe it, it has certainly not been for anything I would call ‘recreation’. Mostly it is about my wife and i expressing love.

 

[Hokomai]

I beg your pardon? Perhaps you should finish this thought. What uncharitable language have I used?

The thought was finished. Others understood what I said. You have described the love-making of couples as 'recreational", as if they were watching TV, or going to the ballet. It is far more than that, and I and many others you attack with these words will be offended by it. It is a further problem that you are unaware of the impact of what you have said.

 

[Hokomai]

Would you trust a survey done by a pro life organization on Catholics contraception use and found only a minority use contraception, say 3%?
%between%

I would if its methodology were sound, and it was in line with other evidence, but as I commented earlier, there is always an issue with partisan sources and I would be suspicious, just as I am of this survey. however, it seems to me to be methodologically sound, at least as reported.

 

[Deus_lo_vult]

The thought was finished. Others understood what I said. You have described the love-making of couples as 'recreational", as if they were watching TV, or going to the ballet. It is far more than that, and I and many others you attack with these words will be offended by it. It is a further problem that you are unaware of the impact of what you have said.

1. I went back to your original post…

’women and mothers efforts’ means sex? I think you should forgive my innocent misunderstanding. You can take your objections of my phraseology to the originator of the phrase ‘recreational sex’, for I am not he/she. As a caucasian I’m not sure I agree that my skin tone is ‘white’ but to constantly protest would needlessly frustrate the communication process, so I accept the ‘white person’ monicker.

**2. **
rec·re·a·tion
   [rek-ree-ey-shuhn]

noun
1.
refreshment by means of some pastime, agreeable exercise, or the like.

a pastime, diversion, exercise, or other resource affording relaxation and enjoyment.

The word ‘recreational’ doesn’t necessitate the absence of love. You intentionally or unwittingly inferred an imagined prejudice into an innocuous word.

Consider a husband and wife engaging in a round of golf. That may be a very loving activity but no one questions that it’s also recreational.

I won’t comment further on this.

3. I would argue that when you have relations with your wife it can be loving, but incompletely so. If any aspect of the sexual act is separated from the others the love involved is not maximal, and moreover, with fewer consequences to the act, it is less of a disinterested gift to your spouse and more prone to abuse and base motives of self-indulgence.

 

[Hokomai]

1. I went back to your original post…

’women and mothers efforts’ means sex? I think you should forgive my innocent misunderstanding. You can take your objections of my phraseology to the originator of the phrase ‘recreational sex’, for I am not he/she. As a caucasian I’m not sure I agree that my skin tone is ‘white’ but to constantly protest would needlessly frustrate the communication process, so I accept the ‘white person’ monicker.

**2. **
rec·re·a·tion
   [rek-ree-ey-shuhn]

noun
1.
refreshment by means of some pastime, agreeable exercise, or the like.
a pastime, diversion, exercise, or other resource affording relaxation and enjoyment.

The word ‘recreational’ doesn’t necessitate the absence of love. You intentionally or unwittingly inferred an imagined prejudice into an innocuous word.

Consider a husband and wife engaging in a round of golf. That may be a very loving activity but no one questions that it’s also recreational.

I won’t comment further on this.

3. I would argue that when you have relations with your wife it can be loving, but incompletely so. If any aspect of the sexual act is separated from the others the love involved is not maximal, and moreover, with fewer consequences to the act, it is less of a disinterested gift to your spouse and more prone to abuse and base motives of self-indulgence.

There you go again.

 

[Deus_lo_vult]

There you go again.

I believe that sex is an objectively knowable good, and my belief rests on a theological belief that God created sex with a specific purpose in mind. That you and I disagree on this point is not a matter of personal antagonism, but opposing definitions.

I’m going to have to insist that you stop posting unrelated objections in the thread, ok? Thanks. If you want to contribute to the debate, that’s fine, and I wholeheartedly welcome your participation.

If I have to I’ll take my case to the moderators and/or admin. If you mistakenly believe that you have a personal spat with me, you should do the same, but this thread is not the place.

God bless, and sorry we couldn’t get on more amiably.

 

[Hokomai]

I believe that sex is an objectively knowable good, and my belief rests on a theological belief that God created sex with a specific purpose in mind. That you and I disagree on this point is not a matter of personal antagonism, but opposing definitions.

I’m going to have to insist that you stop posting unrelated objections in the thread, ok? Thanks. If you want to contribute to the debate, that’s fine, and I wholeheartedly welcome your participation.

If I have to I’ll take my case to the moderators and/or admin. If you mistakenly believe that you have a personal spat with me, you should do the same, but this thread is not the place.

God bless, and sorry we couldn’t get on more amiably.

You started the thread. You don’t own it.

 

[_Abyssinia]

I would if its methodology were sound, and it was in line with other evidence, but as I commented earlier, there is always an issue with partisan sources and I would be suspicious, just as I am of this survey. however, it seems to me to be methodologically sound, at least as reported.

Is the methodology sound?

The survey was limited to women between 15 and 44, so the Guttmacher 98% figure is not ‘‘percent of all Catholic women.’’

The study excluded any women who were not:

• Sexually active - defined as having had sexual intercourse in the past three months
• Post partum
• Pregnant
• Trying to get pregnant

Guttmacher study only includes women for whom pregnancy would be unintended, and who are ‘at risk’’ of becoming prgenant. It is unclear whether women who were neither trying or not trying to get pregnant were included in the survey. Presumably the study excluded these two groups of women because neither count as ‘at risk of pregnancy.’

A faithful Catholic woman between the ages of 15 and 44 who is not married and remains celibate is not going to be included in the ‘‘at risk’’ category.’’ Married Catholic women are more likely not to be avoiding pregnancy than non Catholic women, so Married Catholic women are more liekly to be pregnant or postpartum.

The Guttmacher study was deliberate in covering only women who at the time of the study who were having sexual intercourse, while regarding a pregancy as unintended, which would make it unrepresentitive of Catholics, expecially devout Catholics.

A statistic based on excluding those who have no use for contraception, to the question of the percentage of Catholic women who use contraception is innacurate.

Another major problem with the 98% statistic is that it included all the Catholic women who told researchers they had used ‘no method’’ avoid pregnancy. In the table that is 11%. The Guttmacher study says 98% use contraception and 2% use NFP making it 100%. So women who used no contraception are being included in a statistic about how many women use contraception. If the purpsoe of the study is to demonstrate how many Catholic women are activiely using contraception you need to subract 11% which would make 87%, and that is without all the excluded groups mentioned in above paragraphs.

So the 98% statistic is not accurate or representitive of Catholic women.

98% statistic is found only by using innacurate methodology.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

I would if its methodology were sound, and it was in line with other evidence, but as I commented earlier, there is always an issue with partisan sources and I would be suspicious, just as I am of this survey. however, it seems to me to be methodologically sound, at least as reported.

The source of the survey gives me reason to doubt every aspect of what was reported. In cases like this, I always harken back to a survey released during the Clinton administration that showed that 85% of Americans supported partial-birth abortions. The reported methodology was sound, but in the aftermath the polling firm essentially admitted that you can get whatever result you want with polling, especially when you’re being paid to deliver something specific.

That being said, one thing I’m curious about is how, during their research, did they define “postpartum” and “trying to get pregnant.” Assuming their basic methodology wasn’t intentionally flawed and biased, since women in these states were excluded, altering those basic definitions could greatly expand the number of women left out of the results. For example, if they define the postpartum period as 6 weeks, you’re leaving out a far smaller number than if you define it as 3 months, 9 months or 2 years. It’s a vague term, undefined in the report, and one that could easily be used to exclude respondents who don’t measure up to your desired results.

And since they were polling Catholics, I think their definition of “trying to get pregnant” would be important to know as well. Do they only include women who are actively trying to conceive, or do they also include women who aren’t actively trying to avoid? I think that’s an extremely notable distinction, especially when it comes to Catholics. We know quite a few people who aren’t trying to avoid pregnancy but also wouldn’t consider themselves to be in the “trying to get pregnant” camp; they’re simply taking whatever God sends their way. I’d suspect these people would also be left out of the results, skewing them even further.

Depending on how I defined these terms, I could easily exclude every single Catholic mother in my daughters’ classes.

 

[Nate13]

I already had emailed them lol. The stat itself is possibly right, but it is meaningless. If someone wishes to bring this stat up I expect the host to call out how meaningless it is. All they have to say is that: “Yes, I’m sure 98% of Catholics have stolen something at some point in their life as well”.

I would expect a host to call BS on this stat just as they would if they someone came on the show in support of drugs and argued they should be legalized because 98% of people have used a drug before…

 

[Hokomai]

Is the methodology sound?

The survey was limited to women between 15 and 44, so the Guttmacher 98% figure is not ‘‘percent of all Catholic women.’’

The study excluded any women who were not:

• Sexually active - defined as having had sexual intercourse in the past three months
• Post partum
• Pregnant
• Trying to get pregnant

Guttmacher study only includes women for whom pregnancy would be unintended, and who are ‘at risk’’ of becoming prgenant. It is unclear whether women who were neither trying or not trying to get pregnant were included in the survey. Presumably the study excluded these two groups of women because neither count as ‘at risk of pregnancy.’

A faithful Catholic woman between the ages of 15 and 44 who is not married and remains celibate is not going to be included in the ‘‘at risk’’ category.’’ Married Catholic women are more likely not to be avoiding pregnancy than non Catholic women, so Married Catholic women are more liekly to be pregnant or postpartum.

The Guttmacher study was deliberate in covering only women who at the time of the study who were having sexual intercourse, while regarding a pregancy as unintended, which would make it unrepresentitive of Catholics, expecially devout Catholics.

A statistic based on excluding those who have no use for contraception, to the question of the percentage of Catholic women who use contraception is innacurate.

Another major problem with the 98% statistic is that it included all the Catholic women who told researchers they had used ‘no method’’ avoid pregnancy. In the table that is 11%. The Guttmacher study says 98% use contraception and 2% use NFP making it 100%. So women who used no contraception are being included in a statistic about how many women use contraception. If the purpsoe of the study is to demonstrate how many Catholic women are activiely using contraception you need to subract 11% which would make 87%, and that is without all the excluded groups mentioned in above paragraphs.

So the 98% statistic is not accurate or representitive of Catholic women.

98% statistic is found only by using innacurate methodology.

Yes I think you are right. I had not considered that the Catholic view of ‘trying to get pregnant’ and ‘intended’ might lead to different responses. I also think it likely on reflection that a number of Catholic women may have opted out, and this would be disproportionately Catholic women who support church teaching. But as I said earlier, even if you discount the figures by a third, the Church still has a problem, and criticism of the survey methodology will probably just lead to better surveys saying similar things. The issue to me remains the question of why this teaching is so widely and consistently rejected, in the sense that many people who go against it do not see it as a sin.

 

[Deus_lo_vult]

Yes I think you are right. I had not considered that the Catholic view of ‘trying to get pregnant’ and ‘intended’ might lead to different responses. I also think it likely on reflection that a number of Catholic women may have opted out, and this would be disproportionately Catholic women who support church teaching. But as I said earlier, even if you discount the figures by a third, the Church still has a problem, and criticism of the survey methodology will probably just lead to better surveys saying similar things. The issue to me remains the question of why this teaching is so widely and consistently rejected, in the sense that many people who go against it do not see it as a sin.

1. On the matter of orthodox Catholic females possibly refusing to participate, why should traditional Catholic women avoid a survey intended to withstand a public hearing (which not only includes supporters but detractors who are unsympathetic to the goals of the organization which conducted it) just because it’s conducted by a dubious organization?

I mean they (Guttmacher) can certainly fudge the results, but they won’t get away with that forever. Eventually someone will expose the flaws as we have here, so, as far as I’m concerned traditional Catholic women have everything to gain from participating in this study. This leads me to believe that traditional, observant Catholic women were avoided by the researchers because of their (the researchers) ideological biases.

1. I welcome an impartially conducted survey, no matter how inconvenient it may be to the orthodox Catholic position…society can only stand to gain from greater access to truthful information. It’s not as though I would support infiltrating the Guttmacher Institute to destroy the results of a fairly conducted survey that was unfavorable to my position. I say come what may, let’s have an HONEST survey.

 

[iloveangels]

Not at all. When people use birth control that’s what they’re doing: separating their full intention from their actions. They’re doing it for the hell of it with only the part of their beings that they keep in their pants, reserving the rest of themselves to themselves, and not intending to come to full union with their partners. It’s a kind of fancy masturbation.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

1. On the matter of orthodox Catholic females possibly refusing to participate, why should traditional Catholic women avoid a survey intended to withstand a public hearing (which not only includes supporters but detractors who are unsympathetic to the goals of the organization which conducted it) just because it’s conducted by a dubious organization?

I mean they (Guttmacher) can certainly fudge the results, but they won’t get away with that forever. Eventually someone will expose the flaws as we have here, so, as far as I’m concerned traditional Catholic women have everything to gain from participating in this study. This leads me to believe that traditional, observant Catholic women were avoided by the researchers because of their (the researchers) ideological biases.

There’s no need for them to have opted out. Their responses would have been vetted out by the people doing the study because they don’t match up with the results they’re looking for. In other words, they only want the Catholic women, age 15-44, who are sexually active and looking to avoid getting pregnant. Everyone else was ignored. If, by default, you refuse to include the responses of Catholic women who aren’t sexually active, who are, have recently been or who are trying to get pregnant and those who aren’t looking to avoid, how on earth can you say that 98% of Catholic women use it? Not to mention the fact that they clearly state that they consider the 11% of their respondents *who use no birth control methods at all *as women who use artificial contraceptives.

 

[Nate13]

There’s no need for them to have opted out. Their responses would have been vetted out by the people doing the study because they don’t match up with the results they’re looking for. In other words, they only want the Catholic women, age 15-44, who are sexually active and looking to avoid getting pregnant. Everyone else was ignored. If, by default, you refuse to include the responses of Catholic women who aren’t sexually active, who are, have recently been or who are trying to get pregnant and those who aren’t looking to avoid, how on earth can you say that 98% of Catholic women use it? Not to mention the fact that they clearly state that they consider the 11% of their respondents *who use no birth control methods at all *as women who use artificial contraceptives.

Exactly, a good study should only look at Catholic married couples who are capable of reproducing. The question should be: “Do you use contraceptives/sterilization as a method of birth control?” It’s important to ask whether they are actually using it for birth control and not for some other therapeutic use.

 

[Hokomai]

1. On the matter of orthodox Catholic females possibly refusing to participate, why should traditional Catholic women avoid a survey intended to withstand a public hearing (which not only includes supporters but detractors who are unsympathetic to the goals of the organization which conducted it) just because it’s conducted by a dubious organization? .

umm - because they disagree with the organisation doing the survey, because they don’t usually discuss their sex lives with strangers, because they would not like admitting to having sinned, or because they did not like the phrasing of the questions, which I have agreed does not easily accommodate the Catholic view.

 

[Deus_lo_vult]

umm - because they disagree with the organisation doing the survey, because they don’t usually discuss their sex lives with strangers, because they would not like admitting to having sinned, or because they did not like the phrasing of the questions, which I have agreed does not easily accommodate the Catholic view.

1. This data is collected anonymously. The participants in the study are not listed by name.
2. I’m talking about orthodox Catholic women. Confession is a Sacrament, so I imagine these women would be quite practiced in confessing their innermost sins to strangers, as I am.
3. I disagree with the policies of the Federal government, as a matter of fact, I’m downright scandalized by my government, but I’ll still fill out the census and my tax returns. Organizations of which I disapprove are not going to be responsive to my views if I’m silent every time there’s a roll call.

By this same logic, disenfranchised minorities should not participate in the democratic process because they disagree with the policies of the government. Participation is often the only way to garner acknowledgement.

1. To not participate is to allow the publication of a survey that unfairly represents the religion to which these women are devoted. Had they been in a position to know this survey was being conducted, I don’t doubt that many of them would have offered their opinions, or at least would have assembled and publicly denied the plausibility of the survey.

If I’m standing in a room and I hear someone saying “all Catholics are pro-contraception.” I’m going to speak up about it. I’m going to say that it’s not true. The logic is the same. As I said before one reason this study is so skewed is because it deliberately avoided a whole subsection of women who were pertinent to the study, and that’s one reason that it fails to accurately reflect the true numbers that might have emerged.

 

[JimG]

ummm… the statistic is even more misleading than you suggest. I read through the methodology section of the study, and they state quite clearly, that the survey only covers sexually active women between 15 and 44. It specifically excludes women who are pregnant, postpartum, or trying to become pregnant, covering only women it classifies as “at risk for unintended pregnancy”. This criteria alone essentially excludes every Catholic woman actually living according to the Church’s teaching.

Interesting.

I was just wondering whether all Catholic women have been asked.
Do they count as “using contraception” if they used it just once when they were 19?

It’s the sort of statistic that gets tossed around so much that one suspects it might be meaningless.

Still, I like it in a way. Because if 98% are using contraception, that shows that it is readily available and used. And that means there is simply NO compelling interest for the government to mandate its coverage.

 

[Hokomai]

Surveys always have many refusals to participate. You are confusing what you think people **should **do with actual human behaviour. Here’s a link demonstrating the problem:

fcsm.gov/committees/ihsng/ASA2001.pdf

1. This data is collected anonymously. The participants in the study are not listed by name.
2. I’m talking about orthodox Catholic women. Confession is a Sacrament, so I imagine these women would be quite practiced in confessing their innermost sins to strangers, as I am.
3. I disagree with the policies of the Federal government, as a matter of fact, I’m downright scandalized by my government, but I’ll still fill out the census and my tax returns. Organizations of which I disapprove are not going to be responsive to my views if I’m silent every time there’s a roll call.

By this same logic, disenfranchised minorities should not participate in the democratic process because they disagree with the policies of the government. Participation is often the only way to garner acknowledgement.

1. To not participate is to allow the publication of a survey that unfairly represents the religion to which these women are devoted. Had they been in a position to know this survey was being conducted, I don’t doubt that many of them would have offered their opinions, or at least would have assembled and publicly denied the plausibility of the survey.

If I’m standing in a room and I hear someone saying “all Catholics are pro-contraception.” I’m going to speak up about it. I’m going to say that it’s not true. The logic is the same. As I said before one reason this study is so skewed is because it deliberately avoided a whole subsection of women who were pertinent to the study, and that’s one reason that it fails to accurately reflect the true numbers that might have emerged.

 

[Katholish]

Interesting.

I was just wondering whether all Catholic women have been asked.
Do they count as “using contraception” if they used it just once when they were 19?

It’s the sort of statistic that gets tossed around so much that one suspects it might be meaningless.

Still, I like it in a way. Because if 98% are using contraception, that shows that it is readily available and used. And that means there is simply NO compelling interest for the government to mandate its coverage.

Jim,

The study is a little nebulous on whether or not this is “ever used in one’s lifetime” kind of question. They throw in the word “ever” usually when presenting their answer, however, the Methodology section seems quite clear that they are only asking about the past 3 months. When you think about it, however, I am not sure it makes much different even that the survey is only given to women who are both sexually active and trying to avoid pregnancy.

I don’t think accepting the number is at all helpful for the reason that you suggest because the study differentiates between “highly effective contraceptives” and less effective. The very term “contraception” is nebulous in itself because it includes non-artificial methods such as withdrawl. The study claims that 68% of Catholics (again, using their limited survey feild) use "highly effective contraceptives, i.e. the pill, sterilization, etc. They will argue that the 68% rate needs to be raised.